What does Videogamey mean to you?

[howandwhy99]

(THIS IS NOT AN EDITION WARZ THREAD. PLEASE DO YOUR BEST NOT TO MAKE IT ONE)

If this term means something to you, please define it for us.

Below is my own take. I've posted it on WotC's site before almost a couple of years ago now.

The fact is most bulk rules RPGs, ones where the players are expected to collect massive amounts of rules and try and remember all of them simply to play, are videogamey to me. More precisely, an RPG is videogamey when I as a player have all the rules I am attempting to discover behind the screen instead out in front and in my face. I don't want to be thinking about rules, I want to be attempting to uncover them and their consequences throughout play. I prefer note taking and mapping to mass rules memorization as a player. Games that put the hidden rules in my face remove the magic from the game for me and all too often turn into games of rules lawyering in my experience.

So, if you use this term, what's your definition?

Forwarded from the "what's really at stake in the Edition Warz" thread.

 

[FireLance]

For me, "videogamey" has devolved until it's just become a meaningless slam against whatever game or edition it's been used to describe. I don't find that it adds anything useful to a conversation because it doesn't specify what aspect of videogames the game or edition in question resembles. If I am interested to continue the conversation, I will usually request more details from the person using the term.

EDIT: If I use the term as all, it is usually as a form of humor.

 

[jaerdaph]

I refuse to answer on the grounds that some oversensitive panties might get in a bunch...



Edit: Oh, and IN BEFORE TEH LOCK!

 

[Remathilis]

Its a loaded term, even when narrowing it down to RPG video games.

For example, some people would rant that a game with a strict railroad is "videogamey" because Final Fantasy often forces the player on a one-track road from beginning to end. On the other hand, a sandbox with no defined goal is "videogamey" because World of Warcraft doesn't have a strict overarching metaplot and most people play it by going on helter-skelter quests to find better stuff and level up. (AKA Go into dungeons, kill things, and take their stuff).

Another example: A game that emphasizes PCs have awesome-kewl powerz is videogamey because the PCs have no limit on their power (the cast light 14,400 times a day complaint) but PCs that rely on magic items are also videogamey because it becomes the Diablo-esque "+5 heavy iron sword of demon-slaying" game.

The closest to a "true" definition I can find is the idea of setting it to the antithesis of "novelesque", where the latter term is defined by classic fantasy novels (the Appendix J list) like Tolkien, Fritz, Howard, Vance, Moorcock, or Lieber. Its often used to justify a novelesque approach (which in an of itself is a worthless term used to justify whatever the writer defines as onetruewayism) rather than anything resembling modern fantasy (which, for lack of a better media, has been torch-carried by video game RPGs).

In short, its just a backhanded way to say "Ah, kid's these days!"

 

[Rechan]

To me it means "I don't like it but I can't even enunciate why, or even how it is like a video game even though the specifics are not correct, but I need a word as a catch all to express my dislike".

That's what it means to me when I see it.

However, to be fair to those who mean it as not a malicious epithet, but just cannot put words to it:

Someone who is not familiar RPGs, they might say, "WoD games are like D&D". To someoen who's fairly familiar with one or the other (or both), this comparison can be at the very least very WRONG (and possibly insulting). The systems are totally different, have different assumptions, tell different stories, use different dice (for gods sake!) and address very separate genres. But to the person completely unfamiliar with RPGs, the comparison is apt enough for them because all they are familiar with is the feeling about the basics: Both involve rulebooks where people play characters on a sheet, and roll dice to do things.

So to me, I believe those who use "Videogamey" (without just using it as a catch-all buzzword) are trying to make a comparison but they're fairly unfamiliar with one or both things, they don't have a way to actually compare the two in a detailed manner. So all they can do to express this is go with the knee-jerk that is drawn from first blush with the two. This is why "videogamey" is often paired with "feels". You don't have to concrete similarities to create a "feeling", and you don't have to justify or quantify it.

 

[ggroy]

(I'll just repost my response from the other thread).

Back in the day, a possible definition for "too videogamey" would be a game which resembled Atari's "Adventure",

Atari Arcade | Adventure

with characteristics like:

- the player can only hold one object at any one time
- the player can only die from being eaten by a dragon
- a bat keeps on stealing/exchanging objects
- too much like "capture the flag"
- the game can be "reset" with everything in its previous place, but with the dragons coming back to life

 

[ggroy]

The closest to a "true" definition I can find is the idea of setting it to the antithesis of "novelesque", where the latter term is defined by classic fantasy novels (the Appendix J list) like Tolkien, Fritz, Howard, Vance, Moorcock, or Lieber. Its often used to justify a novelesque approach (which in an of itself is a worthless term used to justify whatever the writer defines as onetruewayism) rather than anything resembling modern fantasy (which, for lack of a better media, has been torch-carried by video game RPGs).

What would be examples of something that is "novelesque", which is absent in something "videogamey"?

 

[jaerdaph]

With all these newfangled D&D terms like "strikers" and "defenders", if anything, 4e is "too footbally".

 

[ggroy]

With all these newfangled D&D terms like "strikers" and "defenders", if anything, 4e is "too footbally".

What would be the "controller" counterpart in football?

 

[Rechan]

What would be the "controller" counterpart in football?

Cheerleader.